We yet again had a leisurely breakfast thanks to the kids crafting activities at our hotel. Between the crafting supplies Millie used up and the amount of food Nick and I ate, I’m sure this hotel lost money on us. The service was impeccable and they even gave us to-go containers to pack from the buffet when they heard we had a drive ahead of us. Millie made the craft lady a nice card and we made sure to tip her well.

We packed up and got a ride down the crazy windy and steep road to the bottom of the mountain. I thought ahead and dosed Millie with Dramamine. She passed out after 5 minutes so I think it worked. I’m debating trying that to get her to sleep on planes at some point. Drugging your children is good parenting right?

We drove 2 hours to Wadi Al Hoqain. We arrived to an empty parking lot and no signage. I got out of the car to look down into the valley. I took this photo for Nick to show him how much water was there. Some, but was it moving? Is it enough to swim? Are we in the right place?

We decided to put on our bathing suits and head down. The water was moving slowly so we followed it up stream. After a bit of rambling around on rocks we heard someone jump into deep water so we knew the swimming area was close. We eventually saw this area of deep blue water.

Even in person it looked fake. We talked about how these always look like they’re at Disneyland. The rocks look manmade and the water looks dyed.

We walked in and swam up through the channel to explore. It quickly gets too deep to stand and is 20% scary, 80% awe inspiring. There’s something about the lack of signage and the way we needed to stumble upon it that makes it feel even more special.

After we made it to the top end of the deep water, we swam back to be near our stuff. Millie and Nick snorkeled around looking for treasure. They have done this at all the wadis and actually found some cool stuff: crocs jibbitz, hair clips, a pretty bracelet, lots of coins, and lots of sunglasses.

We had the place mostly to ourselves. As a family we have loved visiting these wadis, Millie especially.

After a couple of hours of swimming we headed back. It was getting busier now as the temperatures were dropping, and families were arriving to have picnics and play on the playground next to the parking lot. Millie ran around and played as the sun set.

We got in the car and drove the hour back to Muscat ahead of our flight out tomorrow morning. We snacked on the buffet takeaway that I packed earlier.

About 10 minutes out from the hotel, the car alerted us that we had low pressure in one tire. When we arrived I saw that it had a nail in it. What is it with us and bad tire luck on these rental cars? This will be our third car with tire trouble. We’re hoping it’s leaking slowly enough that we’ll be able to drop it off in the morning without dealing with it, but Nick is going to get up at 6am just in case he needs to change it. Stay tuned.